Local Search & Mobile: Emerging Trends Small Business Should Know About

Local searches on mobile phone continue to grow day by day. People are using their smartphones to search local things and also look for services like doctors, hospitals, schools, restaurants, and much more. This article will let the small business owner know why their business should be locally optimized for mobile. This article includes the following:

• Search trends on internet
• Local search Trends
• Search trends on local mobile search

Internet Search Trends

• 74% of Internet users perform local searches.
• 66% of American's use online local search, like Google local search to locate local businesses.
• More than 100 million people a month use Google Maps from mobile phones to find business information.

Local Search Trends

• 61% of local searches result in purchases.
• 82% of local searches follow up offline via an in-store visit, phone call or purchase.
• As much as 43% of Google Search traffic has local content!
• Consumer said they would buy in store versus store when they are: close to store. (30%), could get the product quickly (35%), and saw better pricing (31%).

Local Search Trends on Mobile

• 54% of Americans have substituted the internet and local search for phone books.
• Microsoft has claimed that 53% of mobile searches on Bing are local in nature.
• Mobile local searches for local information are expected to grow from 27.8% in 2008 to 35.1% by 2013.
• Nearly one in two shoppers for local products and services are using their smartphones.
• Over 50% of local searches for businesses happen on mobile devices. With 79% of smartphones users and 81% of tablet users reporting that they use their device for local searches.
• 50% of consumers who visit a store within a day of their local search use their smartphone. 34% of consumers who visit a store within a day of their local search use their computer and tablet.
• Consumer behaviour before visiting store and while in store: 1 in 3 searches smartphone occur right before consumer visit a store. 15% of in store activities involve conducting smart phone searches about a product or for price comparison.
• 4 in 5 consumers conduct local searches on search engines. 88% users use their mobile device and 88% users use computer and tablet to perform this searches.
• Consumers use their smartphone for local search to find business information like business hours (54%), direction to local store (53), local store address (50%). Consumers use their computer/tablet to find information like availability of product at local store (45%), business hours (42%), local store address (38%).
• Over 60% of smartphone owner access local content via app.
• 60% mobile consumers expect business to be within distance.
• 1 out of 3 smartphone users search specifically for contact info like phone number and driving direction.
• 63% people who do local searches typically buy within 1 hour. 66% mobile searches conducted in a store are used to help making purchasing decision.

People have now become more tech savvy and prefer to use their smartphones to find and search various things on internet. Gone are those days when people used to visit their nearest local store to buy something. Time has taken a big leap forward. Now people use internet to compare price and read reviews on their smartphone, tablet, laptop and mobile before going to buy anything. The above data shows that local searches have now gone mobile and use of smartphone is continuously growing for local search as it helps users to make better decision in buying things online or from local store. Now it has become essential for small business owners to optimise their business locally for mobile competitive advantage.

(This post is brought to you by an enterprise application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business)

Ref:

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140403171335-26818297-local-internet-marketing-statistics
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2343577/Google-Local-Searches-Lead-50-of-Mobile-Users-to-Visit-Stores-Study
http://searchengineland.com/report-mobile-traffic-to-local-sites-growing-faster-than-total-internet-now-at-27-percent-158139
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2265547/46-of-Searchers-Now-Use-Mobile-Exclusively-to-Research-Study

Native or Cross Platform Mobile App: How to Decide Which One is Right for Your Business

If you are in a business and still not developed mobile application for your business then it is time to go for that. As mobile tech has changed the way of communication, consumers are shifting from desktop to mobile. Mobile internet users are continuously growing. A research shows that 91% of USA adult population owns a cell phone and 61% of them smartphone users. It has been predicted that by the end of this year 1 billion smartphones will be sold which is double than the PC estimated to sell.

The above data shows that mobile tech is emerging as a new platform to boost your business. May be now you have turned up your mind and agreed to build mobile application but not sure which type of mobile app will be right for your business as mobile market is flooded with varied platforms.

Let us discuss here which type of mobile app you should go for, native app or cross platform.

Native App

Native mobile app is developed to be used on a particular platform like iOS or Android. It can run on a single platform. The key benefits of native mobile app are better user experience and reliability. To decide if native mobile app will be right for you just check the traffic status of your website. If your mobile traffic is limited to a specific mobile platform then you need to develop native app specifically for that platform.

Cross platform mobile app

Cross platform is basically developed to be used on all major mobile platforms like iOS, Android, Blackberry etc. Cross platform offers many benefits like greater reach, uniform look and feel, low development cost, easy marketing and more.

To decide if you need to go for cross platform app or not check your audience demographic on mobile devices. If business audiences come through all major mobile platforms then you need to develop cross mobile app. This write-up is limited to how to decide what type of mobile app you should go for. This does not describe about mobile website. This is helpful for you in case you are going to build mobile app. But before going to build mobile app you should check if your business needs mobile app or mobile website.

Why Your Business Needs Both Mobile Apps and Mobile Website?

In this technology era, you should be well aware of the fact that trends in technology are booming ahead at the speed of light. So you need to be well acquainted with latest trends in technology especially those who run consumer facing business. Simply relying on traditional pattern can be risky for your business. We all know that computers have now become almost obsolete. With the introduction of mobile technology the landscape of consumer behaviour and the way we do business has completely changed. Number of mobile users are now on rise and it has been predicted that by 2014 mobile internet users will overtake desktop users. Please have look at the below graphical presentation which clearly shows the rise in the mobile internet users.

And if we talk about smartphones then it will not be wrong to say that it has completely changed the consumer’s behaviour and they are using it for conversation purpose, online shopping and also for gamming. Number of smartphone users are rapidly increasing and it has been predicted that by the end of 2016 there will be 2.5 billion smartphones in the world, and according to the Juniper Research annual smartphone sales will surpass one billion per year.

After knowing about these trends, if you are still following traditional pattern then you are really making a big mistake. To exist in this competitive market you need to shift your business towards the mobility side Every business owner who is directly dealing with consumers can face many challenges while shifting their business over the mobile platform. The most common challenge is to decide which one out of mobile app or mobile business will be appropriate for their business.

Having developed both mobile app and mobile website for your business can give you a better competitive edge over your competitors.

Mobile App for Better Performance for Privilege Users

Mobile app for your business is essential for your regular usage because mobile app provides better mobile user experience. It is easily downloadable and accessible and does not require internet in most of apps cases. There is no need to access your business again and again via internet.

As per the details by Compuware it has been suggested that these days’ consumer preferences are totally in favour of mobile apps i.e. 85% ahead of the mobile websites. The most common reason for it is that these apps are more convenient (55%), faster (48%) and easier to browse (40%). The below snapshot shows the benefit of mobile apps vs. mobile sites.

Mobile Website for Better Engagement for new Users

Having mobile app for your business is fine but you should not neglect mobile website. Offering mobile website with mobile apps can give you better competitive benefits. In most of the cases new users are not much aware about your business and do not find it comfortable to download or install your business app. By offering access via both mobile apps and mobile website users can get the flexibility to access business websites without any restrictions. At last we can say that developing both mobile app and mobile website can require little more budget but building them can actually provide long term competitive benefits to your business.

(This information is brought to you by a web application development company providing custom web and enterprise mobile application development services to global business)